Cathy Rushton's belated apology to Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz

Welcome to our new readers from colleges and universities across the country, including the Ontario College of Arts and Design, the University of Waterloo, University of Lethbridge and Northwest Community College. We are interested in more of your comments about our stories and investigations, especially if your campus funds a radio station licenced under the CRTC.

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After our last post about the Manitoba Ombudsman confirming our complaint that Red River College breached provincial privacy laws and failed to correct false records created by (then) vice-president Cathy Rushton about Mayor Sam Katz and TGCTS, readers asked more about the letter from the Ombudsman:

'What did the apology Rushton sent to Katz say?'

Rushton, who admitted to blogger Graham Hnatiuk that she "was confused and incorrect" when she spread the falsehood to College and Kick-FM officials that Katz had beefed about "attacks" on our radio program, was no less confused and incorrect in her "apology" to the Mayor.




- The "incorrect assertions" were made to 4 College officials, not 3.

- There was nothing "somewhat similar" about the reason Katz called RRC president Dr. Jeff Zabudsky that would explain her connecting the call to Marty Gold.

The Mayor complained to Zabudsky about a College employee and his blog posts.

That is entirely different than "someone never employed by the College with a radio show".

- Rushton denied intending any harm Katz or to our work providing a platform for community talk radio on behalf of the station. She used the phrases "ragging " and "soap-box" to describe our coverage of the public's concerns about City Hall in conjunction with repeating the false allegation and blaming Marty Gold for the Mayor being riled up at RRC. You decide.

- Contrary to what she told Katz, Rushton never asked Marty Gold to publish the email in a future blog. In fact, it was only through discussions with an investigator from the Ombudsman's Office, that it was learned an apology had been sent to Katz at all.

Left unexplained is why Rushton wrote an "apology" to Kick-FM Board czar David Wiebe on January 19th, yet did not say a peep that she had "determined that my memory was faulty about this phone call" to Marty Gold and Sam Katz first.

It was only after this blog exposed her use of the false allegation to justify canceling The Great Canadian Talk Show that Rushton contacted them, 12 days after her email to Wiebe.